Project Girl

 At this point, I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m not good at sitting still for very long. If nothing else, I’d never before had that luxury, but here in Royal Oak, that notion of being “settled,” or having “arrived,” or “resting” was becoming a reality. My husband saw almost immediate success and was deemed valuable to his new company, which offers a great deal of security, but also, the kids were making friends, enjoying new kinds of freedom, and we had a wonderful and growing network of family and friends nearby. Two years in the virtual holding pattern marked in Evanston went by in a flash, yet to say we recently moved back from the Former Soviet Union seemed somehow inaccurate now. Regardless, we now had what we wanted: a home that was our own, a community we were enjoying, and no more excuses to not be happy and fulfilled. Strange.

Over time I took on little projects in the Girard house. One night I decided to repaint the small kitchen. I took advantage of others’ mistakes and bought returned gallons at Home Depot for half price. I mixed a new color for the walls which enlivened things immediately, but made the painted cabinets look shabby. So I mixed again and repainted those, too. I came up with a light-value, murky green for the walls and a fresh but very muted yellow for the old cabinets. It all played with all the cobalt blue I had sitting around in canisters, dishes, and little vases.

Then, it didn’t take a year before our bedroom carpet was getting to me. It was a creamy-colored cut pile, but it felt rough and itchy under my bare feet even after being cleaned several times. I thought it smelled, too. So I pulled it up to find almost perfect hardwood underneath. After that, a little inspiration hit and I decided to completely redecorate. The walls and closet doors became a willowy green with the textured ceiling (which I loathed) just a shade lighter. I painted the trim in the palest color on the paint chip and the whole room was instantly bathed in the light you’d find sitting under our own willow tree outside the window. I found a long fallen branch in the yard that was about 3” in diameter, stripped the bark, cut it into two and made curtain rods over which I draped cotton fabric with a tight tone-on-tone pattern in a wheaty-beige. I also had wooden blinds made that matched the wood in our furniture. For over our bed, I had blown up to a large poster an old photo my husband had taken of an icy Latvian lake with stark, frozen trees and a few chilly birds flying by. New tawny, wooly flokati rugs balanced the cold in the picture and felt sumptuous underfoot. That room became a very comfortable success.

I mixed more leftover paint for the dining room and came up with a beautiful goldenrod color. It was the perfect backdrop for Winnie’s dining room set. When I reupholstered her chairs with a luscious material of deep raspberry dotted with golden dragonflies, I found several layers of past seat patterns underneath the faded fabric. With an obligatory yet joyful nod to posterity, I cut swatches from each remnant, replaced disintegrating foam and pad, and laid the swatches carefully on top before stretching the dragonflies over and reattaching the seats to the chairs. Winnie was with me that day!

It was fun busying myself with these little tasks in the house. For a while, every time my husband would come home from work or the kids home from school, I had another project going. Project Girl became my name, and sometimes not so affectionately, but it was fun to play, enrich, refurbish, and mark my territory. I wanted to create this environment that would unmistakably feel like our dwelling place, safe place, refuge, founding place, and source. If our environment evoked all of this, surely it would be a true reflection.